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Thursday, February 14, 2008

CLA Chicago - In One Word FABULOUS!

Chicago CLA Upbeat, Well Presented, Well Received

The site of CLA Chicago was a fairly new Westin Yorktown Center in Lombard. Great staff at the hotel, excellent facility, very good quality meals.

Stacy Dudley was in charge of the weekend and did an outstanding job of keeping all of the program pieces on track. Faculty was a combination of seasoned regulars and new presenters and from the comments of the undergrads, all was very well received. Things are good when they run on time and this event was like a Swiss watch. MC's for each event were well scripted and each large group gathering was extremely well attended and received. The breakout sessions on Friday night were a stroke of genius. There was some discussion of them even the following morning.

Officer sessions got rave reviews and in many cases did not have enough time. The hot topics seemed to be well attended. The scheduled ritual team had a tragedy in their chapter and could not attend. We have them in our prayers! ~ The host chapter, Illinois Institute of Technology, stepped up to the plate. They had never before done this ritual as a team and gave a flawless presentation.

The Alumni Reception was a class act with over 50 alumni in attendance. Suggestions were made to have attending chapters help with getting the alumni to attend and possibly have greater alumni programming as has been done in the historical past. It is great to see a first class effort for volunteers!

Awards were well spaced out at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Several new awards, especially recognizing volunteers, were presented.

As said previously by Lekau,

plenty of time for the undergraduates to interact with one another and find their solutions for their issues. . . . . Sessions were fast paced. Videos outstanding. Speakers on the mark. Ritual done by a rookie team, but was absolutely flawless. . . . The undergraduates were fully engaged from start through finish in all of their sessions from small groups through large groups.

In a few words - well done, great location, fabulous team effort - now just work on the weather!